Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, February 1, 2006

2006-02-01 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- President Bush's call for Republicans and Democrats to work together, for America to engage the world and for the nation to quit its addiction to oil will sound to many skeptics like Barry Bonds calling for an end to steroid use in baseball.

It was not Bush's failure to solve these problems over the course of the first five years of his presidency that required him to highlight them in his State of the Union address, his critics insist; it was Bush's contributions to these problems that elevated each to a matter of significance.

For Bush to convince an increasingly skeptical public that it should embrace his vision for the nation -- and his agenda for the rest of his presidency -- and to dig his way out from his weak standing in the polls, he will need to demonstrate that his soothing rhetoric is more than just words. Partisanship, stormy international relations and heavy oil consumption have been hallmarks of Bush's tenure thus far.

Among the things that made Bush's address so different from the thousands of speeches he has delivered since his election was his conciliatory tone toward his adversaries and his invitation for opponents to work with him on developing solutions -- not simply to accept his prescription. The tone of the 51-minute address was appeasing more than resolute and more deliberative than has been customary.

"Our coalition has learned from experience in Iraq," Bush said in a rare admission of flaws in the original course. "Along the way, we have benefited from responsible criticism and counsel offered by members of Congress of both parties."

Civility has not always marked the Bush administration's response to its critics, particularly those who have questioned the war in Iraq. Administration officials blistered Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated Marine and former supporter of the war, when he called in November for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

Vice President Dick Cheney suggested that some Democrats were losing "their backbone," while White House press secretary Scott McClellan said it was "baffling that (Murtha) is endorsing the policy positions of (filmmaker) Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

Tuesday, Bush looked at the Democrats seated to his right and pledged: "In the coming year, I will continue to reach out and seek your good advice."

Bush could not completely contain his defiance, signaling to his supporters that his soft words should not be regarded as retreat.

"There is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure," Bush said.

Yet Bush made perhaps his most impassioned plea for political harmony since the December 2000 evening when he claimed victory after the contested election and pledged: "whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests and I will work to earn your respect."

Bush, in the opening moments of his speech Tuesday, said he would "do my part" to wage debates with civility and to "confront the great issues before us ... in a spirit of good will and respect for one another."

It was a theme he returned to five times in all.

"Tonight the state of our union is strong, and together we will make it stronger," Bush said, an ironic twist of the Democratic phrase "together, we can do better," which has been repeated hundreds of times at partisan events over the past several months.

Despite Bush's muted tone, the depth of division that has marked his elections was in plain view in the House chamber Tuesday night as Republicans repeatedly jumped to their feet to roar their approval while Democrats often remained planted in their seats.

"Bush inherited a bitterly partisanship atmosphere in Washington but governed and campaigned in a fashion that greatly exacerbated it," said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at Washington's Brookings Institute. "He is now partly responsible for that tone, and nothing in his State of the Union speech leads me to believe it will change in the months before the November elections."

The Washington habit of attack and counterattack is so deeply ingrained that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco distributed her response to Bush's address ("Unfortunately, when President Bush and the Republican Congress have led, the special interests have won and the American people have lost") while she was still listening to him speak.

The bipartisan push was not Bush's only departure from previous scripts.

Bush spoke about the need for America to reject "the false comfort of isolationism," using unusually philosophic terms to describe how U.S. leadership in the world is necessary to protect Americans, and spread progress around the globe.

"Isolation would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need."

Though Bush's words could hardly be confused with his those of his internationalist opponents, they nevertheless prompted bemusement from his adversaries.

It was Bush's insistence in waging a war in Iraq without United Nation's backing and the U.S. abrupt withdrawal from treaties on global warming, land mines and international justice that prompted international criticism of the administration's unilateralism.

"Engagement presumes that you are willing to meet the international community half way," Crowley said.

Similarly, Bush's call to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil follows five years of promoting U.S. oil production and rejecting calls for conservation.

In the first year of Bush's presidency, Cheney dismissively observed, "you cannot conserve your way to energy independence."

And last year, the administration threatened to veto a Senate energy bill that called for a much less significant reduction in oil consumption -- albeit over a longer period of time -- than Bush called for on Tuesday night.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.